Odds and Ends and November Thankfulness

Yesterday, I met with the Director of the American Heart Association--Kansas City and the Heart Walk Director for the 2014 AHA Heart and Stroke Walk. Historically it has just been the Heart Walk, but this year it will be the Heart and Stroke walk. We laid out the plan for my company team.  Have I mentioned that I work for a great company?  They get behind Go Red and The Heart and Stroke Walk!

I urge you to put together a Heart and Stroke Walk team with the company you work for here in KC.  I can hook you up with the right people to get you started! If your company won't take part and you would like to walk, you can walk with my company.  If you don't live here in Kansas City, I can help you find your local Heart and Stroke Walk in 2014. 

I attended my first WomenHeart meeting last night and had a great time.  WomenHeart gives out red scarves at the hospital to women that are pretty ill with heart disease.  I received a bag when I was at LMH in the ICU the day after my heart attack.  If you want to learn more abut the red scarf campaign, check out their video titled The Power of the Red Scarf.  They have many chapters in every state and are a great support group for women with heart disease.  Well, unless you are in Ohio and then they only have one chapter.  It happens to be in my hometown of Akron, OH.  I find it odd there is no chapter in Cleveland or Cincinnati given the medical facilities they have in those towns. If you know of any women in those towns that are heart disease survivors and would be interested in starting a WomenHeart support group, they should check out the WomenHeart website or get them in touch with me and I can help.

On another note, I see on Facebook that people are taking every day in November to tell what they are thankful for.  Not being the most organized person in the world, I have already missed the first four days of this.  It also dawns on me that I am mostly thankful for the same things every single day of November.  So, instead of list them out one by one during the month on Facebook, I thought I would do it all today right here:

•  Every November, I am thankful for birthdays.  On the 10th, I get to turn 45.  What a gift that is that I get another year!  This leads into the fact that I am thankful for my life every single day.
• I am thankful for my family.  I have about the best family anyone could have and I am thankful for each one of them.
• I am thankful for my friends--each and every one of them.  They are fantastic people most of whom I have known for 30 years or more!  Lucky me:)  Those of you that I haven't known for thirty years or more, I intend to keep you as friends for as many more years as I have left!
• I am thankful for my doctors.  I am thankful for their wisdom.  I am thankful that someone wanted to be a doctor and now uses their lifelong passion to take care of me.  It helps me continue to be thankful for birthdays.
• I am thankful for my heart sisters because they get it.

Each one of these things I am not only thankful for each day of November, but each day of December, January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September and October.

There are smaller things that I am thankful for in the last week:

• I am thankful that I did not burn the house down when I caught a fry on fire in the oven last week. It is those great domestic skills I have.  I'm sure it was quite comical to watch me fish a burning fry out of the oven with grill tongs while the kitchen is filling with smoke! The commentary coming out of my mouth was probably pretty colorful as well!  Just a day in the life of my kitchen adventures:)  Actually, I am probably thankful every time I come out of the kitchen not having had to call the fire department or make a trip to the ER bleeding to death (especially now that I am on a lifetime of blood thinners!).
• I am thankful the Chiefs are 9-0.  After all the years of being a Chiefs and Browns fan while they both sucked so bad, what fun it is to be a fan of a winning team!
• Speaking of a winning team, I am thankful that Jayhawk Basketball season is upon us!  I sit here writing this with Jayhawk Basketball live from the Phog on my TV.
•  I am thankful in the last week that Jayhawk football is almost over.  I love the Jayhwaks but to be a fan of Jayhawk football has always been as painful as the Chiefs and Browns.  As much as I wish for it every year, I am not sure KU will ever be a football school.

Yes, these are more superficial and shallow things to be thankful for, but the fact that I am around to be thankful for them is a miracle all in itself!  This thing called heart disease dictates you be thankful for even the shallow and superficial things!

So, happy November thankfulness to all of you!  May you each  find the things you are thankful for and live not taking those things for granted.